If 500 miles a day isn’t cruisey enough for you, how about a metre-long barracuda coming over the stern? Shannon Falcone posts this pretty pre-sashimi shot from the Charleston to Antigua delivery on the eve of the already-a-legend RORC Caribbean 600. Go to Instagram to find the usual advice from the ciguaphobic.

While the RORC’s only major fuckup – a useless registration system that makes it tough to find anything but an overall entry list – makes it hard to give you exact links, the quality of the fleet and the stories that abound make it worth watching:

To no one’s surprise, Lloyd Thornburg’s Phaedo^3absolutely obliterated the Caribbean 600 race record with a 33h35m30s elapsed time, beating the previous time set by an ORMA 60 by 6 and a half hours – some 15 percent. Brian Thompson, Michel Desjoyeaux, and Lloyd did all the driving, and when we spoke to him a few minutes ago, he said he owed “a huge debt of gratitude to Michel for his amazing help – without him, we’d never have been able to turn this project around so quickly.” Thornburg only purchased the MOD-70 in January, and is seriously excited to bring his new weapon to the Heineken before taking it North for the NY-UK Transatlantic Race and the Fastnet.

The rest of the fleet is struggling through light air, and turbo Volvo 70 Maserati never got away from Bella Mente before losing their canting mechanism and withdrawing; track the fleet here, and check the thread for pics and video.

The Michel Desjoyeaux-led MOD 70 crew of Lloyd Thornburg’s Phaedo^3 was loosely aware of the Farr 115 Sojana’s long-standing 4h37m43s ’round Antigua record when they went out for their first practice sail today; they put the pedal down on the trimaran and shattered it to pieces. Unofficially, the new record is 2h44m15s, and the top speed the crew remembers seeing is somewhere around 35 knots…unofficially.

There’s a perfect confluence this year of a strong economy, vibrant offshore racing scene, and serious multihull acceptance in 2016, and for those reasons, we’re calling it The Year Of Broken Records. Thanks to ubiquitous maxi-multihulls, MOD70s, GC32s, AC45s and the new Ultim tris, nearly every inshore and ocean racing record could fall this year, which means plenty of masts and dreams will fail, too.

First up? Team Phaedo owner Lloyd Thornburg has finally recovered from his dismasting during the last Transpac, and with a massive refit and huge new rig, he’ll be assaulting the West Coast in 2016 with the now-fire engine red Gunboat 66. But Thornburg’s got a nice combo of no fear and piles of time and money, and he just ‘scrounged together’ a MOD-70 (ex-Foncia) and shipped it across the ocean, recruiting some of the world’s top multihull and ocean racers for next week’s Caribbean 600. With RTW record-holder Brian Thompson, double Vendee Globe winner Mich Desj, and a crew full of talent, there’s almost no conceivable way Phaedo can’t shatter the existing race record of 40 hours 11 mins 5 secs set by old-school ORMA 60 Region Guadeloupe all the way back in 2009.

With the new Rambler 88 and Turbo VO70 Maseratientered in the monohull class, there’s even a chance that the 40h20m monohull record set by David’s Rambler 100 (ex-Speedboat) can fall, but we’re expecting the first real assault on the monohull world to come from Kristy and the boys this spring.

Whaddya get when you put the youngest-ever winning skipper of the Volvo Ocean Race together with one of America’s best skippers on a J/V 72 with enough time on the water now for the kinks to be worked out? At the moment, Terry Hutchinson and Moose Sanderson have helped Hap Fauth’s Bella Mente to a current 1st overall, 1st in class, and less than a mile behind the all-conquering Rambler 90 in one of the world’s most enjoyable races. Track them here, and there’s just a few hours left for one lucky guesser to win a bottle of Oracle Team USA alum and Antigua native Shannon Falcone’s home-brewed rum; we’re not sure it’s legal, but Shannon vowed on his Facebook page to send a bottle to whoever can get closest to the correct line honors boat and closest finish time, but you have to get it in before noon PST today (that’s in a few hours). Check it out here and thanks to forss for the heads up in the thread. Tim Wright photo.

It’s the only race of this distance that’s been consistently growing over the past few years, with the most diverse fleet of 100+ footers racing anywhere in the world. The course is gorgeous, the start/finish venue at the Antigua YC is spectacular, and the folks that run it are as helpful as can be. What more is there to say? Super-schooner Adelalooks to have taken the Spirit of Tradition trophy, while the perpetually top performing canting 50 Privateer leads Bella Mente on CSA at the moment with the roles reversed under IRC. Phaedo couldn’t pull out the handicap victory over the ass-hauling Paradox, though not for lack of trying; we’ve never seen a Gunboat sailed quite so much like an ocean racing cat. The Yellowbrick tracker is the best spot to check overall results; look for the ‘leaderboard’ tab on the bottom left of the screen.